London Olympics coverage drove BBC iPlayer requests to top 196 million

The BBC iPlayer enjoyed a record month in August, thanks largely to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Over 196 million requests were made during August alone, with the highest number coming in the first week of that month, accumulating 51 million requests from 11.5 million users.

With Olympic fever sweeping the nation, the BBC also celebrated the highest-ever proportion of live TV requests accounting for 32 per cent of the total number of iPlayer requests. This broke the Beeb’s previous record of 24 per cent set in July – Andy Murray’s Wimbledon final and the start of the London 2012 Games.

The mobile platform also played its part, accounting for nearly a fifth (19 per cent) of the total requests made, with consumers catching the action on their smartphone and tablet devices.

The London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony trumped the Closing Ceremony by 3.9 million requests to 2.1 million, but ultimately August proved the better month in terms of overall BBC iPlayer requests.